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Social assistance computer error sees millions paid out by mistake in Ontario

33 points by unfocused 12y ago

unfocused 12y ago
I would love to hear the details of this project. Perhaps it can made into a lessons learned (yet another one) for high up government officials. There has to be something to learn here. Anyone have any info on this?
- hawkice 12y ago
  > Perhaps it can made into a lessons learned (yet another one) for high up government officials. I'd be much more interested in comparatively low level people, maybe a team lead or something? I feel the exact same way -- how could someone not be genuinely curious about this type of thing? But I'm a little weary of getting a 'series of tubes' style answer from someone (see the White House response to Healthcare.gov as perhaps a best-reasonably-likely-case scenario -- it didn't foul up the explanation completely but also didn't really speak to the details in any way that you or I would like).
  - unfocused 12y ago
    I'm thinking more and more about this and other questions have come up. The population of Ontario is about 13 million. This isn't even a national service. It's provincial only. Besides what appears to be terrible software, you have to wonder about the procurement methods? i.e. How the contracts were awarded, measures to ensure that money is properly spent, protection clauses that ensure that the government gets value for dollar, etc. To spend that much money on something that small is mind boggling.
    - pakled_engineer 12y ago
      This happens all the time, massive overpriced contracts to gov cronies of what is essentially just a glorified database http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/story.html?id=9840193 http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/story.html?id=9840193 http://www.techvibes.com/blog/bc-government-scraps-scrap-89-million-in-school-software-2011-09-19 http://www.techvibes.com/blog/bc-government-scraps-scrap-89-...
  - beached_whale 12y ago
    Looks like IBM had the contract for it. Who knows was the scope of the original RFP was though. http://www.opseu.org/information/we-can-do-it-information-sheet http://www.opseu.org/information/we-can-do-it-information-sh...
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
dmix 12y ago
$240 million for a software project to do case by case management? Basic income is sounding better and better each day now.
- fchollet 12y ago
  To play the devil's advocate, that amounts to a bit under $7 per Canadian citizen. UBI won't be going very with far that.
  - awor 12y ago
    This was only in Ontario, so $18/citizen
    - desdiv 12y ago
      $18/citizen over 4 years, so that's less than $5 per capita per year.
  - brandonmenc 12y ago
    I think it's less a problem that everyone paid $7, and more a problem that a few received $240M.
  - andrewfong 12y ago
    This only a single example. The more relevant issue is to what extent this is representative of other, similar bureaucratic costs imposed by means-testing and other targeting. Also, you need to consider how many Canadian citizens are already receiving benefits and how much under the current system. If a very large percentage of Canadians are already receiving benefits, then the cost-savings of any system that prevents the remainder from claiming benefits is accordingly diminished.
    - superuser2 12y ago
      Means-testing is not a difficult problem to solve with software. This project was grossly overprovisioned and mismanaged to a degree that probably indicates corruption, yes, but that happens in all kinds of software that has nothing to do with means-testing.
randlet 12y ago
A quarter billion dollars on a provincial software project. This is absolutely mind boggling. Between this and the Presto boondoggle[1] we are probably closing in on a billion dollars being lit on fire in Ontario alone. [1] http://www.thepost.on.ca/2012/12/13/presto-yet-another-liberal-boondoggle-gone-wild http://www.thepost.on.ca/2012/12/13/presto-yet-another-liber...
damian2000 12y ago
Reminds me of this Australian (Qld) Govt project that cost $1.2bn - for a health payroll system, which failed ... http://www.govtechreview.com.au/qld-health-payroll-report-slams-worst-ever-it-project/ http://www.govtechreview.com.au/qld-health-payroll-report-sl...
cfdsfa 12y ago
Not surprised. The Ontario government is probably one of the most inefficient government bodies in the world. Province debt size is twice the size of California, living there is like being in a communist state, can't really expect much from them.
- Iburinoc 12y ago
  If you actually think that and aren't just trolling, would you care to back up your statements? While the Ontario debt is larger than the California debt, it's not really a fair comparison.[1][2] And on the communist state bit, uh what? [1]: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/03/21/ontario_is_no_california_when_it_comes_to_debt.html http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/03/21/ontario... [2]: http://blogs.wsj.com/canadarealtime/2014/03/18/ontario-debt-looks-much-worse-than-californias-at-first-glance/ http://blogs.wsj.com/canadarealtime/2014/03/18/ontario-debt-...
damian2000 12y ago
Its sounds from the limited info in the article that they didn't run the old and new systems side by side for a period of time ... which I thought would have been standard practice with this sort of thing?
mkramlich 12y ago
$240M cost over 4 years thats $60M/year assume that all went to cover cost of programmers or equiv profs lets say fully loaded annual cost of said staff indiv is $150K each $60M gets you 400 of those $150K programmers FT for a year now do that for 4 years for something that is essentially just a database-backed CRUD webapp with simple workflow and the hardest bits actually done by a pre-existing separate service anyway (messaging to banks to issue the DD; printing checks and envelopes then handing off to PO for delivery); and could have been orders-of-magnitude simpler (and cheaper overhead) if all replaced with a totally automated Basic Universal Income payout to every citizen gov software: massively lucrative if weren't so massively inane
- iwwr 12y ago
  I suspect it was done in the usual manner with wiggling requirements and re-writes several times over. Plus the people you may be replacing with software may be the only ones knowing the ins and outs of the system, thus dragging their feet at every opportunity.

33 points by unfocused 12y ago

I would love to hear the details of this project. Perhaps it can made into a lessons learned (yet another one) for high up government officials. There has to be something to learn here. Anyone have any info on this?

hawkice 12y ago
> Perhaps it can made into a lessons learned (yet another one) for high up government officials. I'd be much more interested in comparatively low level people, maybe a team lead or something? I feel the exact same way -- how could someone not be genuinely curious about this type of thing? But I'm a little weary of getting a 'series of tubes' style answer from someone (see the White House response to Healthcare.gov as perhaps a best-reasonably-likely-case scenario -- it didn't foul up the explanation completely but also didn't really speak to the details in any way that you or I would like).
- unfocused 12y ago
  I'm thinking more and more about this and other questions have come up. The population of Ontario is about 13 million. This isn't even a national service. It's provincial only. Besides what appears to be terrible software, you have to wonder about the procurement methods? i.e. How the contracts were awarded, measures to ensure that money is properly spent, protection clauses that ensure that the government gets value for dollar, etc. To spend that much money on something that small is mind boggling.
  - pakled_engineer 12y ago
    This happens all the time, massive overpriced contracts to gov cronies of what is essentially just a glorified database http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/story.html?id=9840193 http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/story.html?id=9840193 http://www.techvibes.com/blog/bc-government-scraps-scrap-89-million-in-school-software-2011-09-19 http://www.techvibes.com/blog/bc-government-scraps-scrap-89-...
- beached_whale 12y ago
  Looks like IBM had the contract for it. Who knows was the scope of the original RFP was though. http://www.opseu.org/information/we-can-do-it-information-sheet http://www.opseu.org/information/we-can-do-it-information-sh...
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

dmix 12y ago

$240 million for a software project to do case by case management? Basic income is sounding better and better each day now.

fchollet 12y ago
To play the devil's advocate, that amounts to a bit under $7 per Canadian citizen. UBI won't be going very with far that.
- awor 12y ago
  This was only in Ontario, so $18/citizen
  - desdiv 12y ago
    $18/citizen over 4 years, so that's less than $5 per capita per year.
- brandonmenc 12y ago
  I think it's less a problem that everyone paid $7, and more a problem that a few received $240M.
- andrewfong 12y ago
  This only a single example. The more relevant issue is to what extent this is representative of other, similar bureaucratic costs imposed by means-testing and other targeting. Also, you need to consider how many Canadian citizens are already receiving benefits and how much under the current system. If a very large percentage of Canadians are already receiving benefits, then the cost-savings of any system that prevents the remainder from claiming benefits is accordingly diminished.
  - superuser2 12y ago
    Means-testing is not a difficult problem to solve with software. This project was grossly overprovisioned and mismanaged to a degree that probably indicates corruption, yes, but that happens in all kinds of software that has nothing to do with means-testing.

randlet 12y ago

A quarter billion dollars on a provincial software project. This is absolutely mind boggling. Between this and the Presto boondoggle[1] we are probably closing in on a billion dollars being lit on fire in Ontario alone. [1] http://www.thepost.on.ca/2012/12/13/presto-yet-another-liberal-boondoggle-gone-wild http://www.thepost.on.ca/2012/12/13/presto-yet-another-liber...

damian2000 12y ago

Reminds me of this Australian (Qld) Govt project that cost $1.2bn - for a health payroll system, which failed ... http://www.govtechreview.com.au/qld-health-payroll-report-slams-worst-ever-it-project/ http://www.govtechreview.com.au/qld-health-payroll-report-sl...

cfdsfa 12y ago

Not surprised. The Ontario government is probably one of the most inefficient government bodies in the world. Province debt size is twice the size of California, living there is like being in a communist state, can't really expect much from them.

Iburinoc 12y ago
If you actually think that and aren't just trolling, would you care to back up your statements? While the Ontario debt is larger than the California debt, it's not really a fair comparison.[1][2] And on the communist state bit, uh what? [1]: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/03/21/ontario_is_no_california_when_it_comes_to_debt.html http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/03/21/ontario... [2]: http://blogs.wsj.com/canadarealtime/2014/03/18/ontario-debt-looks-much-worse-than-californias-at-first-glance/ http://blogs.wsj.com/canadarealtime/2014/03/18/ontario-debt-...

damian2000 12y ago

Its sounds from the limited info in the article that they didn't run the old and new systems side by side for a period of time ... which I thought would have been standard practice with this sort of thing?

mkramlich 12y ago

$240M cost over 4 years thats $60M/year assume that all went to cover cost of programmers or equiv profs lets say fully loaded annual cost of said staff indiv is $150K each $60M gets you 400 of those $150K programmers FT for a year now do that for 4 years for something that is essentially just a database-backed CRUD webapp with simple workflow and the hardest bits actually done by a pre-existing separate service anyway (messaging to banks to issue the DD; printing checks and envelopes then handing off to PO for delivery); and could have been orders-of-magnitude simpler (and cheaper overhead) if all replaced with a totally automated Basic Universal Income payout to every citizen gov software: massively lucrative if weren't so massively inane

iwwr 12y ago
I suspect it was done in the usual manner with wiggling requirements and re-writes several times over. Plus the people you may be replacing with software may be the only ones knowing the ins and outs of the system, thus dragging their feet at every opportunity.